RPA's Bedtime Story at Newport Beach Film Festival

After the success of its dark and entertaining Mandible short promo for the annual Newport Beach Film Festival, RPA has once again teamed up with the event to provide another great campaign.

For five years RPA has worked with the festival and this year the agency is helping to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Last year’s work for the festival garnered recognition from Cannes as it was shortlisted for an award. This year’s campaign is equally compelling, using the perspective of the festival’s projectionist who has seen every film the festival has showed over 15 years.

Launched to celebrate the power of film and its ability to change people in unexpected ways, the lead video, print, out-of-home and festival programmes for the event will showcase the distinctive personality of the festival and the creativity it inspires.

“For 15 years the Newport Beach Film Festival has pushed the envelope for what festival promos can be and what film festivals can do,” says co-founder and director of marketing Todd Quartararo. “RPA has been our partner, each year bringing more and more prestige to the festival, and has helped position us as a key American film festival featuring the best films from around the globe.”

In Bedtime Story, the passionate and comedic projectionist re-enacts references from famous films, such as Fargo, Her, Memento and Pulp Fiction.

“Great film is mind-expanding, so we want the way we talk about it to be mind-expanding, too,” says RPA chief creative officer Joe Baratelli. “For the last five years, RPA has worked with the festival to re-imagine what a film festival promotion can be. Our mission has always been to find whitespace to help them stand out, and to differentiate them from a circuit of other festivals that tend to be too serious, safe and ordinary. It's work that crosses the line beyond advertising, and into a more unexpected place.”

The video is from director Tom Routson of Tool, while the director of photography David Myrick is one of 10 DPs to watch at this year’s festival. Print (below), created by Radio Co., Ltd., features an illustrated head exploding with curious non-sequitur images, and will appear in the April issue of Esquire while the video will run on the festival’s site as well as on YouTube.

The festival will run throughout Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, beginning 24 April and concluding on 1 May.